Codon

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This topic is discussed in the following articles:

cell metabolism

...into proteins by using the genetic code. In this translation, the sequence of nucleotides in the messenger RNA chain is decoded three nucleotides at a time, and each nucleotide triplet (called a
codon) specifies a particular amino acid. Thus, a nucleotide sequence in the DNA specifies a protein provided that a messenger RNA molecule is produced from that DNA sequence. Each region of the DNA...

genetic code

...DNA and directs the formation of the protein. RNA is composed of four nucleotides: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and uracil (U). Three adjacent nucleotides constitute a unit known as the
codon, which codes for an amino acid. For example, the sequence AUG is a
codon that specifies the amino acid methionine. There are 64 possible
codons, three of which do not code for amino acids but...

...Matthew Meselson and American geneticist Franklin W. Stahl. In 1961 Crick and South African biologist Sydney Brenner showed that the genetic code must be read in triplets of nucleotides, called
codons. American geneticist Charles Yanofsky showed that the positions of mutant sites within a gene matched perfectly the positions of altered amino acids in the amino acid sequence of the...

...gene that bears the code for constructing a protein molecule consists of a sequence of several thousand nucleotides, so that each segment of three nucleotides—called a triplet or
codon—codes for one particular amino acid in the protein. The nucleotide sequence in the DNA is first transcribed into a molecule of messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid). The RNA, using a slightly...

...is read by the translation apparatus in “words” of three nucleotides, starting at one end of the mRNA and proceeding along the length of the molecule. These three-letter words are called
codons. Each
codon stands for a specific amino acid, so if the message in mRNA is 900 nucleotides long, which corresponds to 300
codons, it will be translated into a chain of 300 amino acids.

mutations

...amino acids. Cells make 20 common amino acids, and it is the unique number and sequence of these that give a protein its specific function. Each amino acid is encoded by a unique sequence, or
codon, of three of the four possible base pairs in the DNA (A–T, T–A, G–C, and C–G, the individual letters referring to the four nitrogenous bases adenine, thymine, guanine,...

protein synthesis

...a messenger RNA molecule into the amino-acid sequence of a protein. The relationship between the base sequence and the amino-acid sequence constitutes the genetic code. The basic properties of the code are: it is triplet—
i.e., a linear sequence of three bases in mRNA specifies one amino acid in a protein; it is nonoverlapping—
i.e., each triplet is discrete and does...

transfer RNA

...protein synthesis, and in many cases more than one tRNA for each amino acid is present. The nucleotide sequence is converted into a protein sequence by translating each three-base sequence (called a
codon) with a specific protein. The 61
codons used to code amino acids can be read by many fewer than 61 distinct tRNAs (as described in the section Translation). In
E. coli a total...

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